Elsevier

Evolution and Human Behavior

Volume 31, Issue 5, September 2010, Pages 348-353
Evolution and Human Behavior

Original Article
More than just a pretty face: men's priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term versus long-term mating contexts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.04.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Studies of physical attractiveness have long emphasized the constituent features that make faces and bodies attractive, such as symmetry, skin texture, and waist-to-hip ratio. Few studies, however, have examined the reproductively relevant cues conveyed by faces and bodies as whole units. Based on the premise that fertility cues are more readily assessed from a woman's body than her face, the present study tested the hypothesis that men evaluating a potential short-term mate would give higher priority to information gleaned from her body, relative to her face, than men evaluating a potential long-term mate. Male and female participants (N=375) were instructed to consider dating an opposite sex individual, whose face was occluded by a “face box” and whose body was occluded by a “body box,” as a short-term or long-term mate. With the instruction that only one box could be removed to make their decision about their willingness to engage in the designated relationship with the occluded individual, significantly more men assigned to the short-term, compared to the long-term, mating condition removed the body box. Women's face versus body information choice, in contrast, was unaffected by the temporal dimension of the mating condition. These results suggest that men, but not women, have a condition-dependent adaptive proclivity to prioritize facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but shift their priorities toward bodily cues in short-term mating contexts.

Introduction

The importance of physical attractiveness and the biological correlates of various attributes has received much empirical attention since Darwin (1871) noted the precedence given to physical attractiveness, especially in women: “In civilized life man is largely, but by no means exclusively, influenced in the choice of his wife by external appearance” (p. 738). Despite much research having been devoted to attractiveness, most studies have focused on the specific features that contribute to overall attractiveness (for a review, see Sugiyama, 2005). Symmetry (Perrett et al., 1999), averageness (Langlois & Roggman, 1990; but see Grammer & Thornhill, 1994 for sex-specific effects), and sexual dimorphism (Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001) have been shown to affect facial attractiveness. Contributors to bodily attractiveness include waist-to-hip ratio (Singh, 1993) and body mass index (Tovée, Maisey, Emery, & Cornelissen, 1999). Other specific bodily traits, such as muscularity (Frederick & Haselton, 2007), breast size (Furnham & Swami, 2007), and leg length (Sorokowski & Pawlowski, 2008) have been the focus of recent empirical research. Lacking, however, is research on the relative importance of faces and bodies as whole units, and whether the prioritization of facial or bodily attractiveness is dependent upon the intended duration of the mating context (short-term versus long-term mating)—a context of well-documented importance in mate preferences (Buss & Schmitt, 1993).

Aspects of physical attractiveness have been hypothesized to be “attractive” because they have been recurrently and closely associated with individuals' health, age, and hormonal status throughout human evolutionary history (Symons, 1979, Williams, 1975). Certain fitness-dependent cues relating to a woman's current fertility and her reproductive value (a measure of future reproductive potential that is strongly correlated with a woman's age) are conveyed through the face and body with substantial overlap. For example, a woman's current fertility can be assessed through increases in facial (Roberts et al., 2004) and bodily attractiveness (Kirchengast & Gartner, 2002) that occur at ovulation. Similarly, health-correlated cues of reproductive value can be conveyed through both the face and the body. Pocked-marked facial skin, for example, reveals a history of disease (Buss, 1994), while increased leg length is correlated with a multitude of health benefits: lower risks of cardiovascular disease (Gunnell, Whitley, et al., 2003), diabetes (Davey Smith et al., 2001) and cancer (Gunnell, May, Ben-Sholomo, Yarnell, & Smith, 2003). Finally, age-dependent cues also related to reproductive value, such as taut facial skin and firm breasts (Symons, 1979), can be diagnosed through a woman's face and body. Clearly, information regarding a woman's fertility and reproductive value can be gleaned from both her face and body.

Nevertheless, one component, the face or the body, may convey relatively richer information about a particular health or hormonal status variable than the other. Thus, our central hypothesis is that although many cues regarding a woman's health and fertility can be gleaned from both her face and her body, each component conveys a subset of cues that are not conveyed by the other component. The results of several studies have indicated that the face and body make independent contributions toward overall attractiveness (e.g., Currie and Little, 2009, Peters et al., 2007), supporting the tenability of this basic premise. We hypothesized that a woman's face provides relatively richer information regarding her reproductive value; and conversely, that a woman's body conveys stronger cues to her current fertility. These two dimensions peak at different ages, necessitating a tradeoff such that one could not secure a woman who is simultaneously at the pinnacle of reproductive value and fertility. In human populations, reproductive value peaks around age 17, whereas fertility peaks around age 24 (Buss, 1994, Symons, 1979, Williams, 1975). Accordingly, Jones (1996) notes that “…male preferences may have led to the evolution both of cues in the female figure that advertise sexual maturity and of cues in the face that advertise youth” (p. 103; see also Symons, 1979).

Empirical evidence supports the premise that female faces and bodies provide information that is not entirely redundant. Facial features appear to be particularly effective cues of youth and health. Aside from obvious facial indicators of youth, such as homogeneous skin and the absence of wrinkles and sagginess (Fink, Grammer, & Thornhill, 2001), preferences have also been demonstrated for neotenous facial traits (e.g., large eyes; Cunningham, 1986). Features such as these are considered “feminine” because they are sensitive to the rise in estrogen levels that accompanies puberty and persists throughout a woman's reproductive lifespan (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008). As women age and approach menopause, however, androgens increase relative to estrogen levels, causing their facial features to take a more masculine form (e.g., thinner lips; Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005), rendering specific facial features effective proxies for assessing a woman's age and consequently, her reproductive value.

Women's bodies provide a window to several variables related to their current fertility (as contrasted with reproductive value) that cannot be ascertained through their facial characteristics alone. A woman's body shape is subjected to what Singh (1993) refers to as a “wide first pass filter,” a quick heuristic that unconsciously evaluates whether a woman is currently capable of conceiving. For example, information obtained from a woman's waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) informs three concerns paramount to a woman's reproductive condition: (1) pregnancy status, (2) fertility, and possibly, (3) ovulatory status. First, as a woman progresses through pregnancy, her WHR exceeds 1.0, a clear indication that she is currently incapable of conceiving. For example, a young pregnant woman has high reproductive value, but a fertility of zero. This highlights the fact that fertility and reproductive value are partially dissociable, and that bodily cues are a powerful source of information regarding current fertility. Second, women with unusually high WHRs have greater difficulty conceiving than women with sex-typical WHRs (Singh, 1993, Zaadstra et al., 1993); therefore, the hormonal profile necessary for conception can be assessed through a woman's WHR. Finally, based on evidence that women's WHRs may slightly decrease at ovulation (Kirchengast & Gartner, 2002), a woman's figure could also reveal whether or not she is at peak cycle fertility. In addition to waist-to-hip ratio, a woman's body mass index signals her ability to sustain pregnancy and lactation (Lake, Power, & Cole, 1997) as well as her supply of the fatty acids that support fetus neurodevelopment (Lassek & Gaulin, 2008). Bodily traits such as these can be appraised at a glance to assess a woman's current fertility.

Historically, a man's reproductive success depended in part on selecting a mate high in fertility with appreciable reproductive value. However, because there are substantial costs involved in exclusively attempting to secure such a woman (e.g., missed sexual opportunities), men typically make tradeoffs that depend on whether a short-term or long-term mate is sought. Theoretically, for men pursuing a short-term mate, a woman's current fertility is more paramount than her reproductive value (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Thus, unlike men pursuing a long-term mating strategy, men pursuing short-term mating opportunities should possess evolved psychological mechanisms that are activated less by cues to a woman's reproductive value than by cues to her current fertility. This logic formed the basis of our prediction: Men assigned to evaluate a woman a short-term mate would give higher priority to information gleaned from her body than from her face, compared to men assigned to evaluate a woman as a long-term mate.

Although there is compelling evidence that both sexes have evolved short-term and long-term mating strategies (Buss & Schmitt, 1993), individuals naturally differ in the extent to which they pursue one mating strategy over another, a construct labeled sociosexual orientation (SOI-R) (Gangestad & Simpson, 1990). We hypothesized that SOI-R would affect the relative priority given to facial and bodily cues, in addition to the effect of the mating condition to which participants were assigned. Based on the same rationale for the assigned short-term and long-term mating contexts, we anticipated that those who naturally pursue short-term relationships (as measured by the SOI-R, with higher scores indicating less restricted SOI-R; Penke & Asendorpf, 2008) would assign a higher priority to bodily attractiveness than those pursuing mainly long-term committed relationships. Our central hypothesis would receive additional support if both the individual differences in SOI-R and the contextual effects that result from assigning participants to mating conditions produce similar patterns of information prioritization.

We saw no a priori grounds for predicting that women would experience an analogous conditional shift in body versus face priority across the two mating contexts for two reasons. First, women were predicted not to differentially prioritize cues of current fertility because men's fertility does not show the same precipitous age-dependent drop-off as women's fertility. As a result, there has been relatively weaker selection pressure on women to attend to such cues. Second, to the degree that women seek physical indicators of good genes in a mate (Gangestad and Thornhill, 1997, Penton-Voak et al., 1999), hormonally dependent characteristics indicative of good genes appear to be equally reflected in men's faces and bodies (Folstad and Karter, 1992, Gangestad et al., 1994, Thornhill and Gangestad, 1993). Previous research has shown that testosterone-based cues of masculinity (e.g., wide jaw) are correlated with actual and perceived health (Rhodes, Chan, Zebrowitz, & Simmons, 2003). Because such cues have also been correlated with fluctuating asymmetry as assessed through the face and the body (Gangestad, & Thornhill, 2003), information about a man's health can be gleaned from both sources. Thus, in contrast to men, we expected no difference in the priority that women would give to a man's facial and bodily attractiveness as a function of mating context.

Section snippets

Participants

The sample consisted of 381 university students (194 male, 187 female) who agreed to participate in exchange for course credit. The data from six participants who did not identify themselves as heterosexual were excluded, resulting in a data set of 192 men (age M=18.85, SD=1.29) and 183 women (age M=18.69, SD=1.45). Approximately one quarter of the sample (51 men and 57 women) reported being in a committed romantic relationship.

Materials and procedure

Two clothed, full body photographs, one of a man and one of a

Face versus body box choice

To evaluate whether participants chose to remove the face or body box more often, we first conducted an exploratory analysis which revealed a general trend to choose the face box over the body box in male participants (face: 61%; χ21=9.19, N=192, prep=.99, φ=.22) and in female participants (face: 69%; χ21=27.55, N=183, prep>.99, φ=.39). We then conducted χ2cross-tabulation analyses within each sex to examine the effect of mating context on box choice, taking into account the inherently unequal

Discussion

Simply assigning men to a short-term mating condition, as opposed to a long-term mating condition, caused them to increase the priority given to information obtained from a woman's body. Women assigned to the short-term and long-term mating conditions all gave greater priority to information obtained from an opposite sex individual's face. These results, as shown through both box choice and priority ratings, empirically support the hypothesis that men attend to bodily cues more in short-term

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Greg Hixon for his verification of our statistical procedures and members of the Buss Lab for their helpful feedback.

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